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The Chris Wallace Show

Israeli Airstrike Kills Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah; Iran Announces Support for Hezbollah after Killing of Its Leader; Sirens Go Off in Tel Aviv as Fears among Israel Leaders Continue of Possible Hezbollah Retaliation; Donald Trump Makes Appeal to Women, Jewish, and Catholic Voters in Recent Campaigning; Donald Trump's Wife Melania Trump Gives Rare Interview Defending Her Husband; Political Action Committee Releases Ad with Women Accusing Donald Trump of Sexual Assault; Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin Calls for Diplomacy between Israel and Hezbollah after Israeli Killing of Hezbollah's Leader; U.S. Says It was Not Informed by Israel of Planned Attack on Hezbollah Leader. Aired 10-11a ET.

Aired September 28, 2024 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:50]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Hello, and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Jim Sciutto in Tel Aviv. THE CHRIS WALLACE SHOW will start in just a few minutes, but we do want to get you the latest on our breaking news we have been following all morning.

The Middle East on edge after the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike Friday today night. Nasrallah, one of the founders of Hezbollah, oversaw it's transformation into a powerful paramilitary force in the Middle East responsible for numerous terrorist attacks. The strike that killed Nasrallah happened in a densely populated area, killed at least six people, wounded, dozens more. This according to Lebanese officials.

In all, Israel targeted more than 140 sites. The IDF says those targets included weapons storage facilities, production sites, as well as other infrastructure embedded inside residential neighborhoods in Beirut.

There are concerns about a possible response. Hezbollah has fired rockets into Israel, as it has so often these last several months. Iran's supreme leader says its forces are standing alongside Hezbollah. This morning, an IDF spokesperson defended the targeting of Nasrallah, claimed Israel did not see a wider conflict in the region.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIEL HAGARI, IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT HEAD: Israel does not seek a wider escalation. We seek two things, two simple things -- to bring our hostages home for almost a year in Hamas captivity in all means, and to make sure that our borders are safe and secure for our citizens. (END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: CNN senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman joins us now from Beirut. And Ben, as you've been describing in recent days, many in Lebanon were bracing themselves for a wider war. I wonder if today they imagined they're already in it.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think there's no question about it that they're in it, Jim, starting with last Friday's Israeli shock and awe strikes on south Lebanon that left more than 500 people dead, many civilians among them. And taking into account the series of strikes that have killed most of the senior military commanders of Hezbollah, the overnight strikes in Beirut where we saw more than perhaps as many as two dozen strikes on the southern suburbs behind me where we still see that smoke is still rising from those strikes that continued into the day.

And of course, with the killing of Hassan Nasrallah yesterday, definitely this is yet another war between Israel and Hezbollah. And the concern is that with Nasrallah, who it might be some -- difficult for some people to realize this, but Nasrallah was a pragmatist. He was somebody who could keep the young hotheads of Hezbollah under control. Back in 2019, I was at a demonstration in central Beirut where it looked like there was going to be a massive fight between supporters and opponents of Hezbollah. Nasrallah was giving a speech and told his supporters to leave now. And just like that, snap of a finger, they left. He's a man who was able to control the hotheads of the group.

Now, it's believed that perhaps his successor will be Naim Qassem, somebody I saw just the other day where he was giving the eulogy for one of the assassinated Hezbollah military commanders. He's considered a hardliner, somebody who isn't willing to compromise in the messy arena of Lebanese politics, somebody who perhaps is even closer to the line of Iran. So the worry is that, in a sense, a decapitated Hezbollah may be more dangerous, more volatile, and much more difficult to control.

[10:05:09]

SCIUTTO: Ben Wedeman in Beirut, thanks so much.

I want to turn now to CNN international diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson. And Nic, certainly from the perspective of Israelis who have had to evacuate the entire northern part of their country, the northernmost tip, due to Hezbollah rocket attack, as well as to the families of victims of terror attacks carried out by Hezbollah through the years, even going all the way back to 1983, killing those U.S. marines there, this was not a pragmatists. This was a terror leader in the region responsible for violence.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, but then he was a devout enemy, and the views that he espoused were completely antithetical to the life that they wanted to lead. But they also will not be confused by the fact that when you when you kill Hezbollah commander, that you don't get another one, and it's not predictable what shape or form the next one will be. In fact, I had that conversation with some senior officials here speculating about the possibility of this happening, though they gave me no indication that this sort of targeting of Nasrallah was coming. But their question to me was, well, if you do that, then you don't know what you're going to get. And at least with Nasrallah, you knew what you're going to get.

So I think there has been also a pragmatic calculation at the leadership level in Israel that this was still the best move, because in the short term it protects Israel.

SCIUTTO: Is there, though, an independent Hezbollah? Or is the Israeli description as we heard from the IDF a short time ago on this broadcast, that they essentially follow Iran's directions to a tee?

ROBERTSON: They have their own domestic constituency within Lebanon and a political will and a political dispensation in Lebanon, and they act in accordance with their interests inside of Lebanon. But their support and what makes them stronger, the kind of immediacy with which they came to power and influence in the very early 1980s was off the back of that Iranian support. They would not be where they are today without Iran's support, and Iran needs them as a projection of force and a projection of Iran right on Israel's borders.

So no, they cannot act independently, particularly in the international arena, particularly on the issue of Israel. Yes, they can fire a few rockets here on there, but they're going to be working in listening to what Tehran has to say.

SCIUTTO: I wonder now as Israel is at least considering and laying some groundwork for a ground operation in Lebanon, remains to be seen if they ordered one or the size of any one they might order. But Hezbollah arose to some degree out of the Israeli occupation from 82 to 2000. Do we know the difficulties of eliminating Hezbollah, which are not dissimilar from the difficulties Israel has faced from eliminating Hamas from Gaza? Depleting certainly, killing thousands, perhaps more, but eliminating, is that a goal that Israel believes it can accomplish?

ROBERTSON: I don't believe that the military assesses that they can eliminate Hezbollah. But what you, what the threat -- this is how armies evaluate threat, it's ability sort of times by willingness to exercise that ability. That is, they have the weapons, but will they have the desire to use them? At the moment there is sort of perhaps the ability to use them, isn't there?

Look, the reality of crossing the border, you're going to have a different fight, an entirely different fight from the one that you're having right now. The one that you are having right now is from the air, you have dominance, it's intelligence. You can strike targets, you reach over their heads. The one going across the border is you're walking into an area of booby traps, you're walking into an area of mines, you're walking into an area where the enemy knows the terrain. You don't know the terrain.

But the limits of going into that terrain, will it just be a couple of miles to destroy, create a buffer zone? And how do you do that with bombs, with use of artillery, all of that. But it's, your troops going over are obviously much more vulnerable because you're sitting there and the enemy is right at your elbow, so to speak, in the sky, you have a level of safety.

SCIUTTO: And we saw that with Israeli forces and the losses in the 2006 wars as those Israeli forces went into Lebanon. Nic Robertson, thanks so much.

But of course, there is a human cost to all this, and the humanitarian situation is deepening in Lebanon as the health minister says it is likely that Israeli strikes have displaced up to half-a-million people inside the country as a result, not just to the strike that killed the Hezbollah leader, but others that have gone after weapons storage sites and other sites throughout the city. Sometimes Israel has issued warnings to civilians. With the Hezbollah leaders strike it did not.

[10:10:00]

CNN international reporter Nada Bashir is in London. She has been following those humanitarian costs. What are you hearing from those on the ground now?

NADA BASHIR, CNN PRODUCER: The situation is only getting more desperate for civilians on the ground as we continue to see, well, I've seen multiple strikes that are targeting areas which, as you mentioned, are densely populated with civilians. We saw several rounds of strikes targeting the southern suburb of Dahieh yesterday and overnight, an area that is crammed, filled with apartment buildings, residential buildings filled with families and civilians.

And what we have also seen as a result of the fear that this has caused is a huge number of civilians taking to the streets, sleeping on the streets overnight. Our teams on the ground witnessed this last night, many gathering around the coastal area in the west of Beirut, sleeping on the streets with their children, with their families, the fear that their residential buildings could also be struck or maybe impacted by nearby strikes.

Now, as you mentioned, we have heard that there have been some evacuation orders in some cases issued to civilians, which the Israeli military claims are located near Hezbollah targets. But what we've also been hearing is that oftentimes there were simply not enough time, not enough warning to give civilians an ample amount of time to actually get out and get to safety. And of course, this is a country which has already been through so much in recent years. This is a hugely distressing and difficult situation for the civilians of Lebanon.

SCIUTTO: And I imagine, like the residents of Gaza, there must be some question as to whether the safe areas are indeed entirely safe. Nada Bashir, thanks so much covering.

And thanks so much to all of you for joining us as we give you these updates from Tel Aviv and the region. I'll see you back at the top of the hour. THE CHRIS WALLACE SHOW starts right after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:16:32]

CHRIS WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump is campaigning in the rustbelt this weekend after focusing the last few days on key voting blocs, including one that appears to be moving more and more the Kamala Harris.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I always thought women liked me. I never thought I had problem.

(CHEERING)

WALLACE: Donald Trump making a fresh appeal to female voters as a new CNN poll shows only 38 percent of women have a favorable opinion of him, with 57 percent unfavorable.

TRUMP: You will be protected and I will be your protector.

WALLACE: Perhaps a hard sell for someone who a civil jury said sexually abused E. Jean Carroll.

TRUMP: You will no longer be thinking about abortion.

WALLACE: And who takes responsibility for the reversal of Roe v. Wade, rolling back the federal right to abortion.

But Trump has a defender.

MELANIA TRUMP, FORMER FIRST LADY: Maybe some strong tweets. But everything else, great for this country.

WALLACE: Melania Trump in a rare interview praising her husband's record as he doubled down with religious voters. First, telling Catholics they are literally really being persecuted by the Biden/Harris administration, and just as blunt with Jewish voters.

TRUMP: Any Jewish person that votes for her should have their head examined.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WALLACE: Kara.

KARA SWISHER, PODCAST HOST, "PIVOT" AND "ON": Yes. Wow, thank you for that.

WALLACE: Will Trump's "protector" comments win over some women voters?

SWISHER: No. I don't know who it would be. It was very creepy, and a lot of women reacted that way, like, we don't want you as our protector. You're somewhat of a predator is what actually you are. And so I just, no. It was creepy. It was creepy. It felt very Margaret Atwood. It felt strange.

WALLACE: You mean "Handmaid's Tale"?

SWISHER: That is correct. It felt very, I will protect you. Women don't need to be protected that way. We need to be protected from him in some cases, some of the women he's encountered.

WALLACE: The Trump campaign says that his focus on the border and especially crime will resonate with some women. On the other hand, a group called Anti-Psychopath PAC has started running ads featuring women who say they were assaulted by Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He leads me to this room, pushes me against the wall, and starts kissing me forcefully. I tried to push him. He kept coming back at me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Reihan, can Trump make this protector role work to win over some women voters, to lower the gender gap, which is pretty big?

REIHAN SALAM, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, "NATIONAL REVIEW": Well, when you look at the women who support Trump, many of them do look at him as a kind of protector. When you look at married women in the suburbs, groups that he's appealed to in past elections cycles, there is this view that he represents a kind of assertive defense of the country. When you look at border issues, when you look at public safety.

When you look at those who oppose him, this is going to be infuriating. This is going to be something that's going to be inciting, that's going to lead some folks do contribute more small dollar donations to the Harris campaign. So I think that it's polarized, and women are polarized just as men are polarized in the country.

WALLACE: Then there is Melania Trump who made a rare statement in a rare interview. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELANIA TRUMP, FORMER FIRST LADY: He's really a family man. He loves his family. He loves this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Lulu, is Melania a good character witness for her husband?

SWISHER: Go for it.

[10:20:01]

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, "NEW YORK TIMES" JOURNALIST AND PODCAST HOST: No.

(LAUGHTER)

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm just going to leave it at that. No. No, of course, she's not a good character --

WALLACE: It's not absurd. Look, wait a minute. Even in that poll, there were 30 something percent of women who support him.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Of course there are women who support Donald Trump. I mean, that has been true, and actually the majority of them were often white women who support Donald Trump. And there's a lot of different reasons why someone would support Donald Trump. But the problem is when you have this rhetoric coming from Donald Trump saying, I'm going to be your protector, I mean, a lot of women don't need a big daddy, especially one who has been, you know, alleged to have assaulted women and has been convicted in sexual assault. And so there is this real sense that he keeps on falling into this trap where he is actually instead of making inroads, just creeps people out.

SWISHER: And with Melania, I kept thinking, what is she getting? Like, you know, there's all these reports about her being paid for showing up at various things. And I kept thinking, what is -- I wonder what the transaction here was.

WALLACE: Well, I was going to ask you about that, because what do you make of Melania's role in this campaign? She has been virtually absent from the entire campaign. Yes, she appeared the last day of the convention, but didn't say a word. And there is this report that she was paid a quarter-of-a-million dollars to make a speech to a Republican group in April for her husband, who by then was the Republican nominee.

JONAH GOLDBERG, COLUMNIST, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": Yes, so I'm going to try to tie all this together. I don't think that the sexual assault ads are all that effective on anybody who hasn't already made up their mind. If you believe the sexual assault stuff, you're probably not going to be going voting for Trump anyway.

One person who does believe the sexual assault stuff, in my theory, is Melania Trump. And she was humiliated by those trials. And if you want her to show up, you better bring out the checkbook. I think Trump's problem -- this protector thing was weird, I agree, but it's sort of a rightwing version of the old life of Julia stuff we got from the left. Trump's real problem with, I think, a lot of women when you're talking about at scale is they don't like the drama of Trump. He's an obnoxious guy. He makes the country feel chaotic and ill at ease. He makes it seem like he's inviting violence at times. And like that is not something that appeals to a lot of suburban women, and those are the women that he's really suffering with.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And the other thing that's actually happening here with Melania Trump, with the entire Trump family, is that they are -- she has got a book. They are trying to make a lot of money out of this. He's now selling watches.

WALLACE: He's selling $100,000 watches.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Watches, man of the people, you know? He's into crypto. I mean, this is like a massive money making --

WALLACE: Let me ask you about something else, Lulu, because there were also this week the blunt appeals to religion and specifically to Catholic voters and to Jewish voters. What do you think that's all about? And do you think it will work?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I do think actually this is a place where he can make inroads, especially with Catholic voters. Abortion as a big issue for them. So, you know, there is a strong strain of sort of very Catholic voters. And I think with Jewish voters as well, Israel is also a big issue, and they do see the Republican Party being more pro-Israeli on this side. So I do think that if he's going to try something, it's not a bad thing to try.

SWISHER: No, I think it wasn't an appeal. It was you're in idiot if you don't vote for me. I don't think that's an appealing thing.

WALLACE: I think he said you'd need to have your head examined.

SWISHER: Something like that. You're an idiot if you don't vote for me.

GOLDBERG: It was also a threat.

SWISHER: A threats, yes.

GOLDBERG: He said that if I lose the election, were going to blame the Jews, which in the before times would have been a big news story.

SWISHER: Right.

GOLDBERG: Right. It was outrageous what he said, and I think there are a lot of Jews who felt like --

WALLACE: He didn't say we're going to blame the Jews, but I mean, there certainly, there certainly was a lot of people who read that into it.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It was nice religion you got, it'd be a shame --

GOLDBERG: There are going to be a lot of people who are going to that there's going to be some blame to go around for Jewish voters.

WALLACE: Reihan, do you think that's fair?

SALAM: There are certainly surveys suggesting that Kamala Harris is going to win the lowest share of the Jewish vote in a generation, and that whether you liked him or not, Donald Trump is faring very well, particularly with observant Jewish voters and with staunchly pro- Israel Jewish voters. That's one thing.

When it comes to the Catholic vote, when you look to Senator Kamala Harris's record before she was vice president explicitly attacking judicial nominees for having been members on the Knights of Columbus is something that does not necessarily sit very well with a lot of folks who are observant Catholics. So I think that when you look at why Trump is seeking to appeal to this constituency, part of it is actually that this has always been a longstanding constituency for the center right, but also the fact that Harris and Walz are running a campaign that does not seem especially welcoming to faithful Catholics and other religious believers.

WALLACE: Well, speaking of Kamala Harris, she spent her week focusing on two issues that Trump is winning on, and it included a trip she hopes will change voters' minds.

And later, bowling at the box office? The big changes coming mean to your local movie theater.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:29:32]

AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Amara Walker.

We are following breaking news at this hour as the Middle East is on edge after the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike on Friday night. Nasrallah was one of the founders of Hezbollah and oversaw its transformation into a powerful paramilitary force in the Middle East. Now, the strike that killed Nasrallah happened in a densely populated area and killed at least six people and wounded dozens more in Beirut. This is according to Lebanese officials.

[14:30:05]

In all, more than 140 sites were targeted, and the IDF says those targets concluded weapons storage facilities, production sites, and other infrastructure embedded in residential buildings in Beirut.

There are concerns, of course, about a potential response from Hezbollah. Hezbollah has fired rockets into Israel. Iran's supreme leader says its forces are standing with Hezbollah. This morning an IDF spokesman defended the targeting of Nasrallah and claimed Israel did not seek a wider conflict in the region.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIEL HAGARI, IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT HEAD: Israel does not seek a wider escalation. We seek two things, two simple things -- to bring our hostages home for almost a year in Hamas captivity in all means, and to make sure that our borders are safe and secure for our citizens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson is joining us now. Nic, first off, the big question is what happens next from Hezbollah's vantage point, from Israel's vantage point, and also when it comes to Iran and the United States. But let's focus on Hezbollah and what it can do given that not only was its leader killed, but also its weapons caches were also targeted. NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, I think the IDF at the moment is expecting Hezbollah to respond and respond in a significant way. That's why it appears that the IDF has announced today for the home front command instructions in the center of Israel today, center of Israel, that people should not gather outside in numbers greater than 1,000, and this is something that will then be reviewed tomorrow. So it does appear as if the IDF is assessing that Hezbollah will try to strike into the center of Israel.

Now we know in the north, the very north is evacuated already. Cities like Haifa, they have already moved hospitals underground. Schools are closed. Schools won't be operating there tomorrow. The mayor certainly says that the town is on alert. People understand they have to stay close to their shelters.

But in the center of Israel, this would be different. If it comes under heavy Hezbollah bombardment in a way that it hasn't before, this will be something new. And that, they think, is what Hezbollah is going to try to achieve, to create an effect, a military effect on the population of Israel that they haven't witnessed before. And that would be in response to the killing of Hassan Nasrallah.

What happens day two, day three, day four after that isn't clear. But the IDF is saying very clearly to their enemies, in fact, this came a couple of hours ago from the defense minister, "To our enemies," he said, "we are strong and determined." That was from the defense minister.

So the population of Israel has been prepared for the potential of Hezbollah making a bigger strike in the short term into these areas around Tel Aviv.

WALKER: Nic, what does this tell you about the potential intelligence Israel must have had given that it knew the precise location, the whereabouts of Hassan Nasrallah?

ROBERTSON: And the precise location and whereabouts of so many of the commanders that they targeted in the week leading up to this. So it's clearly a lot of intelligence there, whether it's from electronic eavesdropping, whether it's from being able to hack into CCTV cameras where it can hack into wi-fi networks and see who is joining those networks, and a multitude of sort of technical reasons. And then you go in the sky, of course, and you've got drones that it can provide a lot of intelligence. There will be micro drones as well, tiny, tiny little drones that will be available as well.

But the key perhaps here then human intelligence. This was something that they didn't really have in Gaza, an entirely different proposition. But in Lebanon it is a big country with a lot of people and much -- and therefore much easier to penetrate in terms of human intelligence, whether somebody provides that information because they don't like Hezbollah, they're disaffected by them, they have a personal grudge against them, or they simply doing it for financial gain, or it's a honey trap, they're being somehow compromised and forced to provide information. All of those different reasons. But that very likely will have been the sort of eyes and ears that well have told the IDF that Hassan Nasrallah is in that building.

[10:35:04]

And albeit he is in a building that has a lot of civilians in it, we can say with certainty he is there and this is the time to target. That is quite probably part of the intelligence picture that the IDF had. But I think you also have to ad they've been building this picture for year upon year upon year.

WALKER: Yes, and given that you're our chief diplomatic editor, you've been watching this very closely with the United States being involved, trying to broker a ceasefire to no avail between Hamas and Israel. We know that Netanyahu and Biden have not spoken personally in quite some time. We've seen that public rift. And now you have this, it doesn't seem like the U.S. was notified or signaled that this was about to happen. What is your take on what the conversations might sound like inside the White House right now? We have yet to hear a comment from the White House on Nasrallah's death.

ROBERTSON: And of course, the comments that had been coming out until early this week were the ones that were calling for diplomacy. So I think when that moment arrives, it's going to be, again, with a focus on slow this down, stop this, limit this, trying to prevent an escalation across the region, trying to prevent greater civilian casualties and suffering. But now is not the right moment for that voice to be heard, not because diplomacy isn't the right way forward, but the language that's being spoken between the Israeli government and Hezbollah right now is the language of war. There is no space at the moment for diplomatic words to be heard and to be acted upon. There's no -- there will be no desire from Hezbollah's side that this is the moment that they should turn the other cheek.

And certainly, what we've heard from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he thinks Israel is winning. That's what he said at the United Nations, at the UNGA just yesterday. He thinks Israel is winning. His tactics are winning, and those tactics are not for diplomacy. They're to continue to double down against Israel's enemies.

So I suspect the conversation is, we know what we'd like to say. And deeply frustrated as we are, we've been frustrated before. But when is the right moment to interject and call for calm? Because if you call for calm and there's about to be an explosion of violence, that really doesn't benefit you. Your voice sounds weak and ineffective, and that's really counterproductive also for the White House.

WALKER: It could absolutely undermine your credibility. Nic Robertson, really appreciate you joining us this morning and staying on top of this story. Thank you very much.

And of course, our CNN coverage of breaking news out of the Middle East continues straight ahead. We want to show you a live look at Beirut where Hezbollah confirms the death of their leader, Hassan Nasrallah. He was killed in an Israeli airstrike yesterday. We'll have more after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:42:45]

WALKER: Welcome back, everyone. Back to the breaking news. Terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah has been killed in an airstrike in Beirut. Let's get to CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen again. Hi there, Peter. So many questions as to what happens next in terms of Hezbollah's capabilities. Does this paralyze them in any way? We know at least temporarily it seems.

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It's certainly very disruptive given the fact that not only do you have the pagers incidents and the walkie-talkies incidents that killed some of the lower level members, but also you've seen other leaders of Hezbollah being killed.

But I would caution, there's a long history of thinking that you kill the leader of a terrorist group, insurgent group, and somehow the threat disappears. And Hezbollah are after all, is an army of tens of thousands of soldiers, has been around for more than four decades. They're going to have a leadership succession plan. There are a couple of names out there that been suggested as possibilities. And I don't think this is going to going to have any lasting effect on Hezbollah at all, based on the record of other --

WALKER: Peter excuse me. Sorry, I've got to jump in there because we want to get to Nic Robertson who is standing by with some breaking news. Nic, I understand you're hearing sirens behind you. Can you explain what's going on?

ROBERTSON: Yes. So these sirens are in the sort of center and eastern side of Tel Aviv from what we can tell. They're not -- the sirens aren't right here, but I can certainly hear them coming from the city direction here. The sirens have been going for a while. And again, it is uncommon to have sirens here in Tel Aviv, and this is perhaps what the IDF have been worried about. And we were talking about this a few minutes ago, that Hezbollah would manage to get some missiles fired, longer range enough, ballistic missiles maybe, that's what they used earlier in the week, long range enough to reach here towards Tel Aviv.

Now, we haven't heard any impacts here. We haven't heard any intercepts here. But what that may mean is that the missiles were picked up on the tracking system, that they were targeting these areas where the sirens have gone off, but the missiles could have been intercepted a little bit further north from here, which means that would be in this direction.

[10:45:04]

And I'm not seeing signs of intercepts over there right now, but that means that that the sirens could go off here. But the action, if you will, the intercepts, et cetera, could be much further north out of our range to hear out of eyesight. But why the sirens went off here, we're going to try to find that out.

WALKER: Quickly, Nic, if there is an interception from the Iron Dome, what would you hear and see?

ROBERTSON: If it was the Iron Dome, we'd probably hear multiple launches. You would see the rockets flying up from the Iron Dome system. But what we have seen when it has been the ballistic missiles that have been fired by Hezbollah over the past few days. It is a weapons defense system called David's Sling, which is a much more powerful, much faster rocket-based missile system that -- we just heard in the distance an explosion there, my colleagues are telling me. So the David's Sling will shoot down a ballistic missile at a higher altitude, and the ballistic missile, of course, has a much bigger payload than the smaller missiles that were coming from Gaza that the Iron Dome intercepts.

So that's potentially what we've just heard is an intercept off in the distance here. But it does seem to indicate, it does seem to indicate that Hezbollah are now trying to reach their longer range rockets into the center of -- into the center part of Israel this afternoon.

WALKER: All right, Nic Robertson, thank you. And of course, stay in touch, and we'll get you up as soon as anything else happens there in Tel Aviv or where near you are.

Peter, back to you. So would it surprise you if Hezbollah is able to send over missiles, turnaround and sent over missiles over the border this quickly?

BERGEN: No. The short answer is no. I mean, they've got something like 150,000 rockets and missiles, and they have a deep bench. And so yes, they are definitely going to want to respond. I don't want to underplay the fact that their leadership has been decapitated. It's a problem. Some of their other leaders have been killed. That's a problem. Some of the foot soldiers were injured or killed in the pager and walkie-talkie attacks we saw some days ago.

But that said, Hezbollah is not going to go out of business because of this. And they also have a pretty strong popular movement in Lebanon. I mean, they have members of parliament. They are a political party. They are -- they have the most effective military force in Lebanon. It's more effective than the Lebanese army. And I'm not saying that's highly effective, but the point is, is that this will obviously, for it's a victory for Israel, but it doesn't mean that the fight is over by any means.

And the United States has often taken out terrorist leaders. In 2006, the United States killed the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Well, that group eventually became ISIS and took over much of Iraq. So it's kind of a dangerous mistake to think that one kind of strike like this is going to be ultra significant in the long term.

WALKER: One big concern is also Iran's calculus and what the threshold might be for Iran to get directly involved. What are your thoughts on that?

BERGEN: Well, the Iranians are saying that a senior leader of Iranian Revolutionary Guards was also killed in this strike. So they obviously have a lot of skin in the game. They've sent Hezbollah hundreds of millions of dollars over the years. They've supported them in other ways. But Iran does not want to have a full-scale war with Israel or the United States. So they have a dilemma, which is they'd like to respond, but how?

One way that they've responded in the past, the United States killed Soleimani, the leader of the Iraqi Revolutionary Guards in 2020 under President Trump. Will, their response has been an attempt to kill Trump himself, we know from recent news reports, and also people in his inner circle, like John Bolton, his former national security advisor, who now has 24-7 Secret Service protection. So they are going to try and respond, but they probably going to try and respond at a level below outright warfare because they fear they may either lose or at least be severely damaged if it comes through a war with Israel, which might well draw in the United States.

WALKER: Peter Bergen, we're going to leave the conversation there. Thank you so much for your analysis.

We just saw Nic Robertson moments ago as we continue our CNN coverage of breaking news out of the Middle East. Nic Robertson reporting, hearing explosions potentially, also, I should say, sirens there. It's unclear if Hezbollah is now retaliating, but we will stay on top of this story, as Hezbollah has confirmed the death of its leader Hassan Nasrallah, killed in an Israeli airstrike yesterday along with other commanders, along with weapons caches being targeted as well. We will have reaction from around the world as it comes in.

[10:50:00]

Stay with us.

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WALKER: The U.S. is calling for diplomacy in the wake of the Beirut attack that killed Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says the U.S. had no knowledge before Israel's targeted operation and was not involved.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LLOYD AUSTIN, DEFENSE SECRETARY: What I will say is that you've heard me say a number of times that an all-out war should be avoided. Diplomacy continues to be the best way forward. And it's the fastest way to let displaced Israeli and Lebanese citizens return to their homes on both sides of the border.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: Let's turn to CNN's senior White House reporter Kevin Liptack. We're hearing there from the defense secretary urging diplomacy. That's obviously falling on, has been falling on deaf ears. And it begs the question, how much of a difference does Biden's urging make with Netanyahu? It doesn't seem like much. I mean, what are you hearing from the White House? Anything yet?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, it's actually interesting. We haven't heard anything from the White House or from the Biden administration, at least in any official capacity following the confirmation of Nasrallah's death. And that in it of itself, I think, is fairly telling, and it gives you a sense of just how precarious this moment is for President Biden, for the United States as they watch this situation unfold.

Of course, President Biden has said that he is doing everything he can to avoid a wider regional war, to avoid any kind of escalation. And that's one of the reasons that he came out yesterday to say that the U.S. was not involved, that the U.S. didn't have a heads up that this was happening.

[10:55:00]

And in fact, we had heard from American officials that they only found out about this Beirut operation essentially when the planes were in the air, when the operation was already underway. Of course, President Biden had spent the early part of this week trying to broker a ceasefire arrangement between in Israel and Hezbollah, a 20 day -- 21 day ceasefire. He had been working alongside the French to urgently put out a statement calling for that.

They U.S. top Biden administration officials were furious on Thursday when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu essentially region objected that ceasefire proposal. And of course, now we know that this operation would have been in the planning stages, and now we know that it was carried out and targeting the Hezbollah leader.

And so now I think the question for the White House and for President Biden is, what happens next? How does Hezbollah respond? And by extension, how does Iran respond? And certainly, they're watching that space very closely.

WALKER: Do we know, Kevin, if Biden and Netanyahu have been in contact? When was the last time the two spoke on the phone?

LIPTAK: Yes, it was last month. They haven't spoken for over a month at this point. And I think that probably tells you that President Biden doesn't think that he has much to say at this point to the Israeli leader. Of course, there have been communications at lower levels, including just this past week when top administration officials were an intensive meetings with Ron Dermer, who is a close confidante of Netanyahu.

But in terms of phone calls that the White House has announced that it has read out, that hasn't happened since August. And I think that gives you certainly an impression of where that relationship stands, but also what exactly President Biden thinks he can accomplish if he were to speak to Netanyahu, which at this point doesn't seem all that much.

WALKER: All right, Kevin Liptak, we'll leave it there. Thank you so much for coming up for us.

Thank you for joining me on this very busy breaking news day. We'll have more on the killing of Hassan Nasrallah. We are back after a quick break.

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